Solomon Jones: Parenting is child's play for former kids
YOUR KIDS are going to do stuff you don't like. And that's just in the first few hours. Once you get them home from the hospital, things get worse. There are no nurses to take them away for the night. There are no professionals to help you breathe through the pushing. There is no doctor to give you medication.
YOUR KIDS are going to do stuff you don't like. And that's just in the first few hours.
Once you get them home from the hospital, things get worse. There are no nurses to take them away for the night. There are no professionals to help you breathe through the pushing. There is no doctor to give you medication.
There's just you and your little bundle of joy, and while many people have tried to write a manual for what comes next, no one has managed to succeed. The power of positive thinking can't get you through the workday after you've been up all night with a sick kid. Making friends and influencing people won't pay for their school clothes. Asking who moved your cheese won't answer the real question: Who peed on the bathroom floor?
That's why we have to keep this parenting thing simple. And for all of you who've been wondering how to do that, I think I have the answer. You do your best parenting when you remember what it was like to be a kid.
I know it sounds crazy, but in a job in which your duties include cleaning up someone else's bodily fluids, it helps to have a sense of humor. Parenting, after all, is not for the weak, and it's definitely not for the serious. Taking yourself too seriously when you're tired, aggravated, and holding a full diaper is a recipe for disaster.
How do you avoid going crazy? You take your cues from your kids.
Your kids, after all, are the best reminders of your own childhood. They're not always good reminders, either. With behaviors are that are painfully reminiscent of your own, they have the uncanny ability to push you to the breaking point. That's right. Your kids get on your nerves most effectively when they're thinking, acting and speaking just like you did. I know this to be true because I have a teenage daughter. I also have two little ones whose Solomon-like behaviors are rapidly taking shape.
Eve, for instance, likes to talk a lot. She talks so much sometimes that I wonder if her mouth will simply jump off her face and refuse to do any more work until it gets benefits, a pay increase and a cost-of-living adjustment. Little Solomon likes to perform, which would be fine if he would find a stage somewhere instead of trying to perform in class. Both Eve and Little Solomon get on my nerves with these traits, but those traits come straight from the Solomon Jones gene.
As a parent, I want to correct them, chastise them and make them stop acting like I did. I want to do what adults do most effectively - turn adventurous little people into automatons who will spend the majority of their lives obeying society's rules without any regard for their own personal enjoyment.
Fortunately, I'm not just a parent. I'm a former kid, and as such, I want to make sure my kids get the chance to clown, because you're a kid only once. And let's face it. When you're an adult and you talk nonstop like Eve does now, people are mean enough to use duct tape, and prudent enough not to hire you. That's all I need is a grown-up Eve sitting in my house talking to me all day when I'm trying to enjoy my retirement. Likewise, I don't want to stifle Little Solomon to the point that he's 25 and dancing on my dining-room table because I didn't let him perform when he was 5.
Call me selfish, but I want my kids to get out and stay out so I can enjoy being old one day. That's why I'm gonna let them be kids while they can. They won't have this chance forever.
Solomon Jones' column appears every Saturday. He can be reached at